‘The Polar Circle’ published in Sweden

Liza Marklund radically reinvented the crime fiction genre in the late 90s with her legendary The Bomber, featuring crime reporter Annika Bengtzon. With her brand new novel The Polar Circle, a psychological thriller in the darkly humorous vein of Big Little Lies, she is once again breaking new ground in the genre.

Lolita. Roots. The Thorn Birds. Cop Killer. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It’s an eclectic mix of titles that reflects five distinct personalities on the cusp of adulthood, womanhood, and a permanent, deadly change. Welcome to the book club THE POLAR CIRCLE.

Travel north, to the quiet village of Stenträsk, where a crumbling bridge reveals its secret for the first time in forty years. A young woman’s headless body, preserved since the summer of 1980. What happened that August when one of the girls went missing, and how did it change the members of the book club The Polar Circle? What were their secrets, and which ones will come to light now?

The Polar Circle is the first installment in Liza Marklund’s Polar Circle Trilogy, and a riveting deep dive into the minds of five women – as they were then, girls about to graduate high school, and as they are now: mothers, widowed, closeted, ambitious, overlooked. Sex, jealousy, and the drive to escape one’s small-town roots had already predetermined the end of their girlhood alliance-slash-friendship. But what was it that demanded the life of one of them before they parted?

This is a thriller from the deepest north of Sweden, where Liza herself spent her formative teenage years in the ‘80s, just like the girls in the novel. Revisiting that time and place in The Polar Circle makes this remarkable and deeply personal novel dense with authenticity and presence.

‘The Book That Really Did Not Want To Be Read’ Published in Sweden

The Book That Really Did Not Want To Be Read promises to give its readers EVEN MORE trouble than its predecessor – watch out or you’re bound to get bitten! Filled with even more delightful and laugh-inducing read-out-loud hilarity, the book is an ode to the power of words and the togetherness of reading. This book will force its readers to monkey around, decipher a thing or two, and even say some nice things. It’s going to get sweaty, but it will be worth it!

The Book That Really Did Not Want To Be Read is the stand-alone sequel to mega hit The Book That Did Not Want To Be Read, that became the No. 1 bestselling children’s book title of 2020 in its native Sweden.

Kristina Ohlsson No. 1 in Sweden

This week Kristina Ohlsson celebrates four consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the official paperback list in Sweden. The title is of course Storm Watch, the first installment in the new August Strindberg series.

‘The Truth Will Out 2’ teaser trailer release

Today marks the release of the teaser trailer for The Truth Will Out season 2. The crime drama series is based on an original idea by the award-winning author and criminologist Leif GW Persson, and is written and created by Aron Levander and Hans Jörnlind. They are joined by episode writer Anna Platt.

Johan Knattrup

Ingeborg Topsøe joins Salomonsson Agency

Ingeborg Topsøe (b. 1985) is an award-winning Danish screenwriter. Her latest feature Wildland, a female-led mafia drama, received great praise as it premiered at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival and was released in both the UK and US. The feature also earned Topsøe a nomination for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ at the Robert Awards, the Danish Film Academy’s equivalent to the Oscars. Topsøe has always worked in both Scandinavia and abroad, and has written for the Emmy-nominated Amazon show HANNA.

Topsøe graduated from the National Film & Television School in London in 2012, and her graduation work Volume went on to win the British Independent Film Award. It was additionally nominated for a Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival the following year. Topsøe’s feature film debut took place in 2017 with the psychological drama The Charmer, which premiered at San Sebastian. The film earned twelve wins and thirteen nominations in festivals world wide, and was nominated for the Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film at the Gothenburg Film Festival.

Simon Stålenhag listed by NPR as one of Sci-Fi’s genre changers

NPR, America’s National Public Radio, raises Simon Stålenhag as one of seven authors who’ve changed and elevated the sci-fi genre during the last decade, exploring the new format of bite-sized yet profound fiction.

Jason Sheehan, the journalist behind the article, goes on to write the following about Stålenhag and his debut title, Tales from the Loop:

“I love [Stålenhag] for his words. The art is cool, no doubt. But the reason I keep three of his books on my desk at all times is because no other writer […] is better at telling huge stories in small spaces than Stalenhag. Tales From The Loop worldbuilds visually, but it comes alive for me in the small vignettes written into the margins. /…/ 143 words. A complete story, beautiful and haunting. And Stalenhag does this over and over and over again, on nearly every page. His work is both grounded and fantastical, perfectly suited to our modern tastes of ideas served in appetizer-sized portions. What’s more, Loop […] upended things both by proving the viability of crowd-funding in the increasingly siloed world of traditional publishing and presaged the boom we’re now seeing in genre flash and micro fiction.”

To read the full article and list on NPR’s website, just click “read more” below.

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‘As You Sow’ and ‘Trust Me’ top the Swedish July bestseller lists

Hjorth & Rosenfeldt’s As You Sow performs a hat trick on the monthly bestseller list of July, coming in at No. 1 in the hardcover, audio and e-book. Anders Roslund’s Trust Me likewise grabs three top placements, coming in at No. 2 on the same three lists.

Kristina Ohlsson No. 1 in Sweden

Kristina Ohlsson’s Storm Watch is No. 1 also this week on the official paperback bestseller list in Sweden.

‘Beartown’ and ‘Snabba Cash’ nominated for Kristallen awards

HBO’s Beartown, based on the novel of the New York Times No. 1 bestselling author Fredrik Backman and adapted for television by Anders Weidemann, is nominated for a Swedish Emmy – a Kristallen award – for ‘Best Drama’. Also in the running for the award is Netflix’s Snabba Cash, written by Oskar Söderlund and directed by Jesper Ganslandt, both creators and show runners of the series. Jens Lapidus is the author behind the internationally bestselling novel that inspired the series, also titled Snabba Cash.

The Kristallen Gala will take place on August 27th in Stockholm, Sweden.

Kristina Ohlsson No. 1 in Sweden

Kristina Ohlsson’s Storm Watch, the first installment in her new series set on the Swedish west coast, stays firmly put at No. 1 on the official paperback bestseller list in Sweden.